Silver Becomes Her, in a Show’s Portraits

Amy Hempel’s silver white hair is a fact of life. But more than that, it is a banner of identity. Ms. Hempel, the short story writer, recalled recently that a former beau had spied her as she was running to meet him for a movie date. As she caught up with him, he murmured appreciatively: “I knew that was you. I saw that flag of hair.”

Ms. Hempel, 61, is one of several dozen graying women, their hair cropped or curly, tightly bound or cascading past their shoulders (like Ms. Hempel’s), flaunting their waves, who are the subjects of a series of portraits by Vicki Topaz, a photographer in San Francisco. Five years ago when she herself was about to turn 60, Ms. Topaz set out to photograph and interview a group of her contemporaries. Their images, captured over a four-year period, form the substance of an exhibition titled “Silver: a State of Mind,” on view this month at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif., in Marin County. Ms. Topaz’s subjects gaze pensively into her lens, some positively reveling in their manes, raking their fingers through masses of curls, fanning out steel-colored strands, or tossing them every which way in a signal act of defiance.

“These are women who have fun,” Ms. Topaz said. “They’re confident and at ease with being who they are.” Most were self-assured enough, in fact, to speak candidly about when and why they stopped masking their gray.

Practicality was certainly a factor. “The majority of women who had let go of dyeing found that they had one less burden,” Ms. Topaz said. “Once they’d lightened their load, they were free to get on with it, whatever it was they were doing with their lives.”

Going gray helped her to look her age, recalled Alice Shaw, an artist in her late 40s. She was just 37 when she spotted the first hints of gray. “Now I keep it that way,” she said. “It makes me look authoritative.”

Ms. Topaz’s subjects, accomplished and highly articulate, flaunted pewter, silver or steel-colored locks that sometimes doubled as a metaphor, a potent symbol of where they had been and who they had become.

“This is me and I don’t plan to change,” said Susan Kim, 54, a boutique owner, shown in the photographs, shaking out a full head of silver-streaked hair. She had no plans to color, nor would she opt for plastic surgery or a radical diet, Ms. Kim insisted. “There are a lot of other things I want to do with my life.”

For Yasmina Rossi, 58, a model and photographer, long, gray hair functions as an enveloping cloak. “It protects me everywhere I go in the world,” Ms. Rossi said. “I’ve been in deep Amazonia, I’ve been in Egypt, and in places completely isolated, and people were respectful of me because of my gray hair.”

Some women faced hurdles. Friends and family members sometimes raised an eyebrow. While in her late 40s, Gloria Frym, a college professor in her 60s, asked her husband how he would feel if she stopped dyeing her hair. As she recalled, he informed her tersely, “I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

Ms. Hempel, whose hair was threaded with flint by the time she was 19, and entirely white by the time she had reached her mid-40s, said not all her friends, the women in particular, had been receptive.

Some had been downright disapproving. “A very good friend of mine told me,” she said with a laugh, “ ‘It just looks like you’re wearing a powdered wig.’ ”

Reactions in the workplace were tougher still. “These women were competing with colleagues who were 10 to 20 years younger,” Ms. Topaz said. “Younger seemed more desirable, and they felt really challenged by that.”

Yet, as some of her subjects insisted, showing off a bright mantle of gunmetal hair in no way diminished their sexual allure. In the street men would shout after them, “Hey, silver fox,” some of the women told her.

“By no means did they feel they were approaching the end of something,” Ms. Topaz said. “Many of them felt they were only now in their prime.”

Ms. Topaz still dyes her hair, for which she has taken plenty of ribbing. But her husband, perhaps wisely, offers no judgment. “He’s not going to go there,” she said. “He told me, ‘Just do what makes you happy.’ ”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page E9 of the New York edition with the headline: Silver Becomes Her, In a Show’s Portraits. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe